Kenneth Feinberg, Head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront and Pay Czar

June 11, 2009, Democratic President Barack Obama installed Washington DC lobbyist and Democratic donor Kenneth Feinberg as compensation czar. Although it is unclear from where he gains the legal authority to do so, from his government offices in the Treasury building, Mr. Feinberg will set the salaries and bonuses of 175 top executives at seven of the nation’s largest companies. He is planning on working day and night to savagely use the power of the US government to personally attack the livelihoods of the top employees in these critical firms, apparently in the name of some nebulous concept of fairness.

Mr. Feinberg has decided, again on questionably legal and constitutional authority, that he personally gets to now decide the pay for the top 25 executives at the American International Group, Citibank, Chrysler, Chrysler Credit, General Motors, GMAC and Bank of America. In addition, he has decided that for 80 other financial institutions that have received federal assistance, he personally will develop the overall compensation structure, but right now has decided that he and his minions don't have time to decide the exact level of pay for the employees in these companies.

As Sweetness and Light puts it, this is yet another blow to whatever is left of freedom in this country. Under the Obama administration, the list of czars is getting quite long, as he has decided that best way to rule our nation is to appoint roving officials with no authority yet little constraints on power.

A quick search of Open Secrets turns revealed that Mr. Feinberg is anything but unbiased- over the years he has donated massive amounts of money to mostly Democratic candidates (with an occasional moderate or independent sprinkled in). Last election cycle her particularly liked Obama- he donated $7200 to him, although he hedged his bets and also donated $8700 to Hillary Clinton and $6900 to John Kerry. He also gave significant large amounts of money to individual Democratic Senators and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Feinberg is a long-time Democratic operative and actually spent 5 years as Democratic Senator Kennedy's chief of staff. This long partisan association indubitably qualifies him for service in Obama's house of thugs and cronies.

Few have even dreamed up the idea federal officials who would have the power to tell private companies that they are paying their own employees too much money. Probably the closest modern day comparison to Kenneth Feinberg in terms of job description is Robert Ley, who was head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF). In this capacity, his job was to set the wages and salaries of the employees in the top firms in Germany. It tried to level the playing field for workers and preferred companies that the state controlled. He also was a longtime political operative who worked for the administration to control the salaries of executives for the good of the state. Robert Ley, who was a Nazi, died in 1945 while awaiting trial for war crimes.